


The Uninvited Guests

by Erisah_Mae



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms, Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom, POE Edgar Allan - Works
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Implied Violence, References to Poe's the Black Cat, Very English responses to shock, Wordplay, mild body horror, puns, some very confused coppers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 05:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18337292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erisah_Mae/pseuds/Erisah_Mae
Summary: An Alice in Wonderland meets the Cthulhu mythos story. Something is going on up at the Little Manorhouse. Ever since Young Alice went missing for the second time, things have seemed... off up there. Constable Ridley goes to investigate, and is not prepared for what he sees.





	The Uninvited Guests

**Author's Note:**

> Someone gave me a prompt blending Alice in Wonderland with Lovecraftian Horror. This is what happened next.

 

When the young lad from the kitchens of the Manor house on the hill barrelled gasping through Constable Robert Ridley’s front door, he had dropped his cutlery immediately, ignoring the resigned sigh from his daughter and the annoyed grunt from his prospective son-in-law at the interruption to their dinner.

“What’s happened Billy?” he asked, standing up from the table.

Young Billy Hodges, who Ridley remembered from the first time the boy’s mother had been well enough after the birth to carry him into church, reminded Ridley of a startled colt, all white eyes and big flat teeth and gangly limbs.

“There’s trouble up at the Big House,” Billy managed to gasp out. “They was having a party, and some scary looking fellers broke in, and Cook, she told me to get my arse down for the coppers, and your place was closest sir, please come quickly, one of them had an axe…” he looked haunted. “I didn’t see nothing because Cook pushed me out the door that fast, but I heard this screaming…”

“Right,” said Ridley grimly, taking in Billy’s white face, and thought that Cook had chosen her runner well, both because he was fast, and because he had a feeling that whatever was happening up at the Manor house, the lad was better off as far away from it as possible. “You did good lad. Vi, get Billy here a cup of tea. Tom, if you don’t mind…”

“You want me to run to the station?” Tom said, already putting arms into his coat. “What do you want me to tell them?”

Ridley took a brief moment to appreciate the fact that his probably-future-son-in-law might be a bit of a conceited prig, but at least he could prioritise. “All hands on deck. I don’t know what we’re walking into, but whatever it is, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Viola, a veteran of such affairs, had already sat Billy down on one of the dining chairs and was coaxing well-honeyed tea into him. Took after her grandmother his girl, Ridley thought with a quick flash of affection. “I’ll go knock Doctor Jameson out of bed,” she said, throwing on her shawl.

“Good girl,” Ridley affirmed, and then he was in his hat and coat with his revolver in his pocket and out the door.

The run to the Manor house on top of the hill had never felt longer, but Ridley slogged through the thick mud of the road and wished he had thought to borrow his son-in-law’s bicycle. No matter, no doubt Tom was using it to get to the station.

As he approached the house, there were no screams. That was either a very good sign, he thought, or a very bad one, and since he had been a copper for most of his life his money was on the latter.

There was no birdsong. Even the crickets seemed to be holding their collective breath. All he could hear outside of the thundering of his blood was the rasp of his own harsh breathing, and the heavy scuffing thud of his own boots in the wet grass.

Light poured from the windows of the Manor hall, but they were placed too high-up for Ridley to see through from his angle of approach. At least, he thought, ignoring the way his heart throbbed resentfully in his chest from the exercise, there was little chance that people inside could see his approach.

As he neared the side door, Ridley ducked below the level of the window, wincing slightly when his left foot crunched in gravel. Now that he was closer, he could hear someone speaking, but was not yet close enough to catch the words. The door was clearly broken off its hinges, with deep gouges in the wood that suggested that Billy had correctly identified the axe. Johnny Bolger, a man that Ridley had gone to school with back in the day, lay on the cold tiles of the floor, head bleeding from what fortunately looked to be a blow from the door rather than the axe.

Ridley leaned forward, peering carefully around before he checked Johnny’s breathing. To his relief, he saw no one, and Johnny was still breathing. Carefully, he rearranged Johnny’s limbs so that they were a little closer to his body, to lessen the chance of someone tripping on the poor man, and slowly stepped past, knowing from the last time he was in the Manor house (when young Alice had disappeared the second time, only for her to turn back up talking incomprehensibly about how her cats knew where she had been,) that this particular side door leads to a corridor that leads to the hall.

Closer now, the low voice resolves into words.

“Come now Alice. You cannot say that I did not warn you,” a masculine voice purred. “I did say that you would be mad to come back.”

“No you did not,” came a strident response, and Ridley recognised the voice of thirteen-year-old Alice Little. “You said I must be mad to be there in the first place.”

“And then,” the unfamiliar voice retorted smoothly, “you proved me right by returning. Bad enough you should fall down the rabbithole, but you stepped through that looking glass willingly.” There was an odd rustling of cloth. “Did I not tell you that your curiosity would be the death of you?”

“Hah!” Alice scoffed. “Rather, Curiosity killed the Cat. Did Satisfaction bring you back?”

Ridley wondered if that was supposed to be some manner of inside joke. He crept close enough to peer around the doorway, and took in the Manor hall.

If he had not known any better, he might have thought that the Littles were throwing a costume party. After all, what other sensible explanation was there for the figures standing in dark cloaks and animal masks?

However, a mere moment’s glance showed that first bizarre impression to be false. Constable Ridley did not consider himself knowledgeable about the fashions of the rich, even he could see that everyone else at the party, from the youngest Little child to the silver-haired gentleman who stood at Mr Little’s elbow was dressed fancily, but not in fancy dress.

They stood, in their lace and their ruffles and their carefully pressed suits, and the expressions of all were horrified, looking not at the masks, two rabbits, a cat, a mouse, a walrus and… a bat? But rather at the axes and swords and clubs and croquet mallets that the caped intruders held.

And in between the two groups stood little Alice Little, dressed all in white, her dark hair held back with a ribbon, her feet planted apart as though she was bodily shielding all behind her.

The father in Ridley wanted nothing more than to dash in there and drag the girl out of the line of fire, but doing so would betray his presence.  

And as much as it should have looked ridiculous, grown adults cowering in the shadow of a thirteen-year-old girl, Ridley could not help but notice that none of the masked figures were attempting to get past her.

He considered what was best to do. It would do no good bursting in just now, not until the others showed up. These were not the sort of people who would be impressed by the gravitas of a single country copper, even if he was carrying his issued revolver. There were too many potential hostages in the room, and although he trusted his aim, he had only five shots to threaten seven men with. He had never been good at arithmetic, but he was no gambler to bet lives with those odds.

“Funny you should mention Satisfaction,” said the man in the cat mask, who Ridley realised was the one he had heard speaking before. “Because the Red Queen demands hers.”

Alice laughed, and Ridley felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He remembered the stories of Viking berserkers he had read as a boy. He imagined that if they had truly laughed on the battlefield, they had laughed like that.

“What was it that the Cook said at the trial?” Alice said, placing one hand on her hip, as though oblivious to the weapons wielded before her. “Shan’t. I saw Nothing.”

“Yes, we know you did,” replied a man whose mask was nearly covered by an enormous top-hat in an ominous tone. “You saw Nothing and you stole our Time.”

Alice scoffed. “Time ran away with me. He didn’t appreciate the murder attempt.”

The top-hatted man did not appear to like that, although the others in masks all hooted and laughed as though Alice had scored some kind of point.

“Alice, who are these people,” Mrs Little querulously demanded from where she stood to one side, trying to hide her youngest children from view. “How do you know them?”

Alice huffed, the sound oddly petulant. “I told you, Mother,” she said, without taking her eyes from the masked men. “It is hardly my fault that you didn’t believe me when I told you about the Dreamlands. You told me to stop talking nonsense before you sent me to Bedlam.”

“We would have found you quicker then,” said the woman (Ridley was startled to discover) in the bat mask. “After all, madmen make the best dreamers.”

One of the figures wearing a rabbit mask let out an unsettling giggle at this, and everyone but Alice (including the others in masks) flinched back.

 “‘Yet mad I am not and very surely I do not dream’,” Alice replied firmly, as though the words were some sort of talisman. Ridley thought he recognised them from something his daughter had read aloud to him years ago, and something about the reference bothered him. He had a feeling that Vi was far older than thirteen when she had read that.

At least the girl was keeping them talking. Just ten more minutes, and then surely there would be enough of them to take these men out.

“’But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul,’” responded the cat-masked man, hefting his axe. “So you figured out the answer to Hatter’s riddle did you.”

“How is a raven like a writing desk?” Alice said, clasping her hands behind her like a child reciting for a schoolteacher. She smiled, and the light in her eyes was cold. “Poe wrote on many things besides those. Were you the black cat, Cheshire? He plucked out your eye, then hung you from the tree. Did the Norns teach you the runes, like they did to Odin?”

The cat-masked man she called Cheshire chuckled darkly. “Shall I tell you what I have seen, Little girl? Shall I tell them?” he asked, gesturing at the rest of the guests. “Shall I tell them what you did?”

“Nonsense,” Alice replied. “I did nothing.”

“No, you _saw_ Nothing,” Cheshire replied, making Ridley wonder if nothing was code for something, the way the intruders kept bringing it up as though it were significant. “And what you did was steal a way. Did the Red Queen not tell you that all the ways belonged to her?”

“Always,” Alice said, in a tone of irony. “But she also said that if I made it to the end of the board that I could be Queen.”

 “She also said,” Cheshire reparteed grimly, “that when you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.”

“Yes, but I shook her into a kitten, and she lost Time so I really don’t see why her opinion should matter at all,” Alice replied triumphantly.

Ridley wondered what the devil the girl meant by that, but was distracted as he heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see Simon Thorpe, his fellow constable standing just behind him.

How many? He mouthed.

Simon pointed to himself, to Ridley, and then pointed in the general direction of the other side of the house, and raised three fingers, then pulled out his pocket watch and pointed at a time five minutes from now.

They were still outnumbered, but Ridley felt distinctly better about the odds of five to seven compared to five to one.

“I’m not sure that’s a precedent you want to set, your majesty,” Cheshire mocked her. “After all, maybe we could shake the answers we want from you.”

Alice scowled, but from his angle to the side, Ridley could see that she was clenching her hands behind her back.

“I don’t have Time for that,” she gritted out.

More hooting. Now Ridley was certain that they were speaking in some sort of code.

The walrus-masked man grinned and leaned forward. “So cruel to Cheshire you are. You still like me best, don’t you Alice? You could come and walk with us. A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach,” he said, visibly licking his lips with an improbably large tongue in a way that turned Ridley’s stomach.

Alice glared. “You think you scare me? I’m no oyster. I made it across the board,” she said. “I won my place in the Court. She cannot have my head for her collection. I see she finally managed to get her hands on yours.” She turned back to Cheshire then. “Was it the Cards that betrayed you?” she asked, seemingly sympathetically. “I saved three of the rose gardeners, and yet they turned on me within a hand.”

Cheshire made a low growling noise, and grinned. If Ridley had not known any better, he would have thought that the man was delighted. “And what did I do to deserve you telling the King and Queen that I belonged to the Duchess?”

Alice paused then. Ridley gritted his teeth. This was the first time she had faltered, and there were still three minutes to go before the others would be ready to enter.

“But you escaped!” she rallied after a moment. “Your head disappeared so that they could not have it!”

“When you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences,” Cheshire repeated, like it was his mantra. He pulled something from his cloak, and Ridley saw that it was a very realistic looking bird’s head, large and red-eyed. A strange blueish liquid dripped from the base of it, running down Cheshire’s arm to drip off his elbow.

“I think this will look very well on you after I have taken your head,” Cheshire said, turning the bird’s head from side to side, showing Alice the sharp hook of the beak. “You will make an excellent parrot.”

Alice scoffed. “You’re the one borrowing other people’s words. I thought better of you, Cat. I should have known you were as insubstantial as your smile.”

It was unclear if Cheshire was offended by that statement, but the way he raised his axe suggested that perhaps Alice had hit a nerve. He paused, as though waiting for something, and then grinned.

“Looks to me like you’re running out of Time,” he purred.

“Off with her head!” the other masked figures chanted. “Off with her head!”

Ridley exchanged a glance with Simon. They would just have to hope that the others were in position.

“Right!” Ridley shouted, capturing the attention of all. “What’s all this then?”

Cheshire turned, and opened his mouth to say something, but what new oddness he was about to spout would never be heard, for Alice took the opportunity to stab him in the throat.

“Bloody fuck!” swore Simon behind him.

Normally Ridley disapproved of swearing in front of women, but he could not help but feel that Simon had spoken for the both of them. Where had the knife come from… oh. It was not a knife. Going from the two rounded shapes that protruded from Cheshire’s neck, Alice had stabbed him with her sewing scissors. Oddly, it seemed as though the mask had offered no protection. It must have been glued to his skin or something, because even as he dropped the axe and bird-mask and clutched at his throat, throwing his collar into bloody disarray, Ridley could not see where mask ended and man began.

The other masked people turned back at the sound of the choked gurgle, and to Ridley’s bewildered horror, instead of attacking, they took one look at the girl with arterial blood staining her once-white dress and all started laughing.

“Ah, we thought you were a White Queen, but you’ve painted your roses Red!” chortled the one wearing the bat mask.

“Snicker-snack! He won’t come back!” said another, giggling madly.

“Satisfaction can’t reach where _he’ll_ be going,” added another in smug tones.

“Speaking of going,” yawned a fourth, raising one hand to the mouth of her mouse-mask. “Shouldn’t we?”

“Yes, must not be late,” said one of the rabbit-masked ones, consulting an overlarge pocket watch. “You know how our Queen hates it.”

“Well, we’ll just tell her that Cheshire lost his head,” giggled the other. “Or is it her head? Never mind, the point remains that he lost.”

The rabbit-masked man with the pocket watch flicked his ears in agreement (wait, Ridley thought blankly. How did he make the ears move independently like that? Were there cogs hidden beneath the extremely life-like features?) and held up an indescribable device that seemed half-mechanism, half fungus.

The device glowed, and suddenly, where before there had been nothing but thin air, a tear started to appear, with a reverberating wrenching sound as though the fabric of reality itself were being torn asunder.

And then suddenly every lamp in the room went out.

“Everyone Get Down!” Ridley shouted, but it seemed that no one heeded him. The mad laughter was quickly drowned out by screams. Ridley heard gunshots coming from the other side of the building, and hoped to god that none of the party guests had been hit.

There was a squelching thump, and then another, followed by high-pitched howling.

“She’s disarmed me!” shrieked one of the voices that had been mocking Cheshire’s death moments before.

“Well pick it up before she dis-legs you!” came the entirely unsympathetic reply. “Hurry up! I can’t hold it open much longer!”

There was another sickening thunk, like a butcher’s cleaver hacking into bone, followed by a braying squeal.

Then suddenly, the noises stopped.

The silence stretched. There was a faint dripping noise, but nothing else.

Suddenly, there was a soft scraping noise, and then Simon’s face was illuminated. Ridley blinked and saw that he had struck a match.

There was a startled whimpering noise from the direction of the floor, but nothing else. Ridley could vaguely see a few huddled shapes gathering themselves together, but the heads all appeared to be normally shaped.

Simon quickly relit one of the wall sconces. The light held.

Ridley looked around, and saw that only one person was standing. It was Alice, and she was holding Cheshire’s axe.

Ridley thought that he knew what, or rather who, had caused that horrible butcher’s cleaver noise.

“Oh, it’s you Constable Ridley!” Alice said, as though she were greeting him in the street. “I am afraid we had some uninvited guests.” She looked thoughtfully at the rather large bloodstain on the floor. There was something… odd about the colour of it. Ridley could not quite put his finger on what.

Perhaps that it was so very, _very_ red.

Perhaps that it was tinged with blue.

“They seem to have attempted to clean up after themselves, but rather poorly,” Alice continued and suddenly he realised that the masked figures must have taken Cheshire’s body with them.

(And perhaps a severed arm, if he had understood that exclamation correctly.)

Ridley looked again at Alice, and noticed that she was even bloodier than she had appeared when the lights went down. The only white parts of her now were her sclera and her grinning teeth.

Alice’s mother let out a soft moan from where she lay, but her elder sister climbed to her feet, tucking something metallic into the pocket of her dress. A few others did the same, but only Alice’s sister stepped closer to the bloody apparition standing by the bloodstain.

“Alice?” she said very carefully. “Perhaps we should get you cleaned up. And then…” she looked doubtfully towards Ridley and Simon, “perhaps you might tell the police how you knew those men?”

Alice sighed, as though her sister had chided her on her manners. “Very well, sister,” she said, in tones of making a concession, and made to leave.

“Perhaps,” Ridley said, before she could take a step, “you should put down that axe first.”

Alice turned, and smiled at him. “Of course, Constable Ridley.” She placed the gory weapon gently on the ground.

Just then, Elliot, Danvers and Wilson stumbled through the door on the other side of the hall.

“Who was shot?” Elliot demanded. Then he saw young Alice and paused.

“I am afraid you are all late to the party,” Alice said.

“Wait, that wasn’t you shooting?” Simon asked Elliot.

Elliot shook his head. “None of us. We were still rounding the hedges when we heard the gunfire and the screaming.” He looked again at Alice. “What the bloody hell happened in here?”

Alice shrugged, and something looking suspiciously like viscera dropped onto the floor from her shoulder. “Uninvited guests. But they’ve all left now. If you’ll excuse me gentlemen?”

And before any of them could say a word, Alice swept from the room, leaving bloody footprints in her wake.

“Oh, I do hope she doesn’t step on the Persian rug,” said Alice’s sister, before hurrying after her.

“Goodness,” Mrs Little said, staggering to her feet. “Well, I do believe that Cook was going to be serving tea and coffee and cake in the drawing room,” she said, pasting on a bright smile. “Perhaps we should all go there, and let the servants clear this up.” She beckoned imperiously to a footman, and started whispering furiously.

The guests nodded, and one by one they turned and meandered towards the drawing room, moving like sleepwalkers.

“You too, Constables,” Mrs Little said, as the footman dashed away. “Thank you for coming, but now let us put that unpleasantness from our minds!”

And with that she flounced off to follow her guests.

 “Well, alls well that ends well,” Simon said.

Ridley blinked. “A thirteen-year-old girl just killed a man.”

Simon shrugged. “We don’t know that, Bert. After all, it’s not like there is a body. It seems unlikely, all things considered. She’s just a slip of a thing, that young Alice.”

Ridley opened his mouth, and then closed it, realising that he had absolutely no notion of what to say to that.

Simon stepped around the puddle of blood that was seeping into the grout of the tiled floor, and then brightened suddenly. “I think I’ll go get some of that cake.”

Ridley stared after all of them.

“‘Yet mad I am not, and very surely do I not dream,’” he muttered, repeating the line from Poe.

If only he could be certain.

Especially since somehow he doubted further talk with Alice was going to make things clearer.

 

 


End file.
